Dropped

I have ridden my bike 2 times in the past 3 weeks, so I thought it might be  a good idea to start out with the A group.

I arrived at Liberty for the Thursday night road ride, and  chatted for a while.  We rolled out and hit the first climb,   several guys off the front and I was setting the pace up to the I-26 bridge.  Over the top and someone else took the lead.  We rolled down the hill and onto 191.

We had a group of about 12 now, and I was hoping to hang on for a while, but reality told me I would get dropped.  And I did.  I was pleased to hang on as long as I could.  While the overall pace was ok for me,  we hit one of the larger grunt climbs and I couldn't sustain. 

I held steady and kept spinning, keeping the group in sight.  I managed to catch up at the stop sign only to get dropped again minutes later.  And so it goes. 

But, I had a blast.  I realized that mixing it up like this was a lot of fun, and with the B group to scoop me up, decided that I would try to hang with the A's each week.  Maybe by the end of the summer, I'll be faster. 

The rest of the ride was pretty steady,  Kevin and I ended up mixing in with the B group, and doing a lot of the pulling.  The sun was setting and it was getting dark.  I bid the group farewell and headed up the parkway, tired, hurting but happy for the challenge ahead.

And looking forward to riding my bike consistently!